Hurricane Water

I don’t hear the trees snap, but feel their stretched limbs in the wind’s energy.

We shine flashlights into the dark, and where there had been yard, is now a tangled mass of leaves and sticks. 

The lone palm tosses and bends, a wild dance to elemental music. 

Where do hummingbirds and butterflies go, when the very air is alive with movement?

We pace the house as the wind gathers its breath. 

We tuck valuables, passports, money, the wooden birds my father carved by hand, and clothes into backpacks. 

Ready to go.

Go where, if the ocean waters come calling, is uncertain, but if we have to leave, we’re prepared.

We have conversations about surreal things, like boats coming through walls and what room is safest in case of trees breaking windows. 

The power goes, and the absence of electronic noise amplifies the storm’s voice.

A roar like a distant train.

A howl through the windows like a far-off wolf.

A purring moan like the ocean’s own voice, calling in the dark. 

I keep one hand on my son, one on my husband.

My anchors, and the bodies I’m prepared to cover with my own if the hurricane refuses to remain outside.

Hurricane Delta Morning with no power, Isla Mujeres

In a hurricane, as the wind rises, so do your thoughts. 

You think of your loved ones, worrying far away. 

You think of what you’ll grab first.

How you’ll get the dogs out if the water creeps beneath the door.

If a tree falls on the house.

If a boat from the marina next door breaks through the wall.

You think about the things you still want to do in life.

Contemplate how finite it all is.

How precious the feeling of one hand cradled in your husband’s calloused palm, and one curled around your sweet baby boy’s foot. 

You think about how you’ve made promises to yourself to be a better listener; actually learn Spanish; help more people when you can.

You think about your son.

How incredibly precious, tiny, fragile, his bird-boned body, curly blonde head, and ocean-blue eyes seem in the face of such dangers.

You know without a doubt you’ll shield these two bodies with your own at any cost.

Whatever it takes, to keep them safe.

You fall asleep with a flashlight clutched in both hands, fully dressed, ready.

Late-night, early-dawn hurricane thoughts finally give way to sleep. 

Hurricane Delta storm damage Isla Mujeres

We awaken, surprised to find the walls still solid, and the wind retreating. 

We take stock as daylight creeps through slate-gray storm clouds.

Leaves litter the ground like green confetti.

A fiesta of destruction across lawn and courtyard.

Isla Mujeres storm damage hurricane Delta

Neighbors appear, all hands work clearing debris, and the new, barer landscape reveals itself.

It feels a bit like being on a raft at sea. We know nothing of what’s happening in the larger world. Cut off from technology and the mainland, we can only hope the rest of the world still exists.

In the afternoon, we put the baby down for his nap and make love like survivors.

We pull each other close as skin and bone allow.

Daylight’s energy is an impossible contrast to the howling, uncertain darkness of hours before.

We hold each other in a silence full of love, hope, and life. 

Sunset is a purple, orange, and pink confection. A sky full of apology for the violent night.

Stars poke pinpricks of light through the evening’s dark blanket.

The water lines are down, but we’re prepared.

I set buckets outside while the storm raged, collecting water as it appeared from every direction.

In candlelight’s warm glow I wash my hair in hurricane water.

Pour liquid storm over my head.

Lick my lips as water trickles down my face.

In the quiet, post-storm night, I take droplets of hurricane inside me.

Storm water Isla Mujeres
Hurricane Delta
Hurricane Delta

Baking Bread with Callan

Baking with Callan

1 tablespoon yeast. 

Granules bounce from the measuring spoon into the stainless steel bowl.

I add sugar and warm water. The yeast begins to bubble.

“Momma!” 

I’m startled away from yeast alchemy.

“Hi baby,” I say to the little, earnest, blue-eyed face looking up at me.

“Mess! Mess!”

His rice pudding has spilled, sticky grains of rice scattered around both our feet.

I leave the yeast to do its thing and clean up the spilled rice pudding.

3 cups flour. 

Is this where I am in the recipe? Did I add the water yet?

Ok. 3 cups flour. Salt. Oil? Wait…

“Momma!”

“Yes love?”

“Mummummummum!”

“What do you need baby?” I ask, squinting at the recipe book, which is propped up against the toaster.

“Poop!”

“Poop? Oh dear.”

This actually means he’s already in the process of removing his diaper, and I have a matter of seconds before poo is on the floor, his hands, and on its way elsewhere.

“Ok! Coming love! Hold still! No! No! Not yet!” I say desperately as he pulls his diaper off.

I narrowly avert disaster. 

Dispose of the dirty diaper. Wipe bum. Put on new diaper. Wash hands.

OK. Now. Where was I?

Salt, flour, stir. Ok.

“Up!”

“What sweetie?” I say, turning the sticky dough over and around with the wooden spatula my father carved for me. He carved “Rosebud”, my nickname, into the handle.

“UPUPUPUP!!!!” Says the imperious, demanding voice below me.

I pick him up. His wispy blond hairs tickle the bottom of my chin, and his little body is hot against mine. 

“Me!” Callan says.

I put his little hands around the spatula handle, curling my hand around as a guide.

Together we turn the dough.

Just as my momma taught me.

Our hands holding in the same place my father held as he carved. 

Callan looks up at me and smiles.

I’m sweaty, tired, and a bit irritated.

All that disappears with his smile.

I smile back. 

The same way my momma did, in that favorite photo of the two of us from when I was Callan’s age, “helping” her in the kitchen.

“Tanks momma,” he says.

“You’re welcome my love,” I whisper into the top of his head. “Thank you.”

Me and my beautiful momma.
Me and my beautiful momma.
Callan joy
Callan joy
Homemade Bread
Homemade Bread

Quarantine Observations

Beginning of May

I slump with a tired, sore sigh into the Tommy Bahama beach chair—a matching set. Ryan, my husband, laughed when we bought them, saying they officially made us old.

The chairs perch, blue and beach-ready on the anti-sand mat covering a piece of dirt in the yard where the new grass didn’t take.

I’m drinking a cold Dos XX that’s precious in a way I couldn’t have imagined three months ago. 

Before alcohol was prohibited on the island.

Before checked bags at the ferry and arranged bootleg drop offs. 

Before masks and checkpoints.

Before seven weeks in quarantine.

It feels like I could part the air with my fingertips. The humidity is a held breath in a closed mouth.

The sky darkens, and I hear thunder for the first time in over two months.

We’re in the midst of a drought. The trees are so dry they droop, exhausted in the heat. 

A few scattered patters, and my heart dares to hope. 

There are wild fires on the mainland. 

We awoke at 4 a.m., choked by the smell of woodsmoke. 

The Cancun coast was invisible behind a thick haze.

Acrid smoke made the baby cough, and we kept windows and doors closed rather than welcoming in the morning, like we usually do.

Thunder reverberates, and the skies let loose their watery burden. Just like that, it’s raining. 

The west wind blows the air clean, and water washes away weeks of dust, soot, bird feathers, and a bit of my angst.

I’ve been fantasizing about the smell of earth and rain mingling. 

As the rain pours down, I stay in my chair, letting it run across my upturned face.

For this moment, it is enough.

***

One Month Later

Mourning doves call, echoing voices to the east, and south. 

My phone filters in the news—a trickle or a torrent depending on my self control. 

It feels so far away from it all here, in my walled backyard. 

The President of Mexico visited The Island this morning. Two miles down the road, we didn’t notice a thing. 

Ryan mowed the lawn, we played with Callan, and I made pancakes for breakfast. 

But all the while my heart ached and I tried not to think of the stories, scrolling like a newsfeed through my mind:

looting; 

police shooting at protestors;

“I can’t breathe!”

Cities burning;

A whirlwind of pain, confusion, fear, and frustration riding on a tidal wave that’s been picking up speed for hundreds of years.

I want to march.

I want to scream.

I want to cry and pound my fists in frustration watching history repeat itself. 

But here, on Isla Mujeres, a breeze reaches its breath from one side of the island to the other, knocking brown leaves off the Zapote tree, to fall on the ground at my feet.

A mosquito bursts bright blood—my blood—onto my leg and palm where I hit as it bites. 

Ripe fruit dangles from the cirhuela tree.

Cirhuela Fruit
Cirhuela Fruit

A tropical storm is coming, and the air hangs heavy.

Thousands of miles away from my loved ones working in hospitals on the Covid frontlines; walking the protest front lines.

I’m left with words, and anxiety. A cellphone that brings me news, and a baby boy about to wake up from his nap. 

The view of the Caribbean from Isla Mujeres South Point
The view of the Caribbean from Isla Mujeres South Point

Last Day of July

I’m not sure how it’s possible time can go so fast, and so slow simultaneously.

July seems to have disappeared in a blink.

I’m working on learning to focus. Zoom in on the tiny, wonderful, or just good things in front of me.

The perfection in homemade sourdough bread, buttery avocado, creamy-soft hard boiled egg, and the bright burst of sea salt across my tongue.

I’m trying to focus on what I can control.

So many deep breaths.

Spontaneous dancing in the living room.

Appreciating the way the house sounds, when everyone else is asleep.

Glorying in a moment of shared laughter.

Tonight, I watch the moon rise above my husband, who’s singing and playing. It’s a scene so familiar and beloved.

Goosebumps rise on my arms as he sings a love song to me, and my heart feels bigger, fuller, than it has in a long time.

Despite the masks, the signs, the hand sanitizer on every table, in this moment there’s a taste of “the before days” and I try to hold there. 

I try to still the worries, the constant ache, the anxiety that lurks on the periphery. 

All of that is true. But so is this moment. 

This feeling. 

Our love, my husband’s music, and a Caribbean full moon.

Ryan Rickman playing at El Patio on Isla Mujeres
Ryan Rickman playing at El Patio on Isla Mujeres
The Rickman Family
The Rickman Family

An Unconventional Life

Isla Mujeres Caribbean Coastline
Isla Mujeres Caribbean Coastline

A breeze ruffles the guaya tree leaves. Shiny-eyed grackles and mockingbirds cackle and trill, interspersed with mourning dove coos.
Isla sounds.
My husband has the baby, and other than the occasional dog noise, the house is still.
I’m splayed across the kind size bed, body adjusting to the absence of the other, tiny body usually attached, or so close. My mind slides slowly over conversations, moments, memories. A disjointed, non-chronological microfiche.
Some jump in consciousness conjures remembrances from my early twenties—days in the Elmer Johnson Road cabin with The Rock River Farm crew. There are moments, such as this, when my mind struggles to fully grasp the magnitude of difference between my life then, and now. At twenty-three, what I believed my future would look like versus the reality that came to be.
An eight year relationship and marriage; a divorce; a two and a half year abusive relationship; a time of healing and joyful independence; a new beginning, marriage, and son.
It’s hard in many, many ways, from missing family to cultural differences, but I love our pirate life on this strange island in the Caribbean that is Mexico, and is also not.
It’s an interesting crew who wash up on these shores and make a home here, but for the most part they have a good story to tell and a light of perseverance and strength that’s too rare these days.
Callan is growing up in a community of mostly aunties—strong, hardworking, interesting women, and men, who love my son and will help us teach him to be a good man.

Playa time with momma. Isla Mujeres
Playa time with momma. Isla Mujeres

I missed an entire Upper Peninsula summer last year because I was very pregnant, and then home caring for a newborn. Returning to Michigan for a visit after missing it so fiercely, everything feels sharper, more acute. I’m overwhelmed by aromas: sweet milky milkweed; warm grasses baking in the sun; perfumed lemon lilies; seaweed-water lake tang; and all that abundance of pine needles, fields, forests of leaves and wildflowers warm beneath a July blue sky.
I don’t have to remind myself to take deep breaths. Instead, I nose the air like a hound, teasing out individual aromas like the orchid-delicate perfume of catalpa flowers, or the faint talcum hint of daisy.
I know I loved and noticed these aromas when I lived in Michigan, but perhaps they weren’t as vivid, masked by close proximity.
In absence, such remembrances sealed into our beings become more vivid—memory stones polished by much handling.
It’s raining, the air turned cool in a moment, petrichor lifting upward as the dry ground exhales in relief.

Home: Upper Peninsula in July
Home: Upper Peninsula in July

Because last winter was so cold and long, I didn’t expect the accosting hordes of pests that are wreaking havoc on local forests and gardens alike. Army worms have chewed the leaves into a shadow of the deep green they should be this time of year. When it’s very, very still you can sit in the woods and hear the pitter patter as the worm’s tiny mandibles chew and their poop falls to the ground.
Perhaps in response to global warming’s strange weather patterns or the destructive caterpillars, but everywhere I notice trees heavy with seeds. The cedar outside my bedroom window is loaded with little green nuts soon to brown in late summer sun.
Maple tree branches hang low, stems laden with as-yet green twin seed pods, waiting for the right wind to helicopter them to the ground in their bid for regeneration.

Abuelo, Callan, and the garden
Abuelo, Callan, and the garden.

These are things I notice. The Upper Michigan environment is such a part of me. Named, handled, studied, and familiar. After being away, changes become more acute.
My dad’s garden is a fraction of what it should be as the flea beetles chew carefully tended seedlings down to nothing. But it’s mid-July, so there’s plenty of time to recover. Dad carefully attends to each plant, helping ensure their survival. The UP’s late growing season makes for an overwhelming, wonderful, glut of produce at the end of August. Sweet corn, broccoli, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, green beans, cabbage, spinach, onions, zucchini, and the list continues.
It’s all so familiar, I slide back into this place with a wiggle of glee and joy. Familiar, but also more dear for the absence and longing.
Nowadays, I often ponder my dual blessing and curse of loving and being a part of two such wonderful, but far distant places.
How different they are, and yet each holds a part of me. It’s a beautiful incompleteness, but painful too, because no matter here or there, some little piece is missing.
Maple leaves and sea grapes. Guava trees and apples. Freshwater and salt.

Home Water. Big Manistique Lake
Home Water. Big Manistique Lake

“It’s an unconventional life you’ve built for yourselves,” Ryan’s stepmom, Ellen says to us.
“Thank you,” Ryan and I reply in unison.
He smiles at me in the rear view mirror. I return the smile. A world of words in the meeting of eyes and a turn of lips.
We’re in the car, entering the outskirts of Cancun, returning from an afternoon visit to local cenotes. The traffic is light, but still hectic as lanes are ignored and mopeds, buses, and cars maneuver around one another in orchestrated chaos. I don’t drive in Cancun. I’m ok in city traffic, but I simply don’t understand the rules here. I suspect no one really does.
Ryan does a wonderful job, but it takes a lot of concentration.
In order to reach the cenotes, we drove our car onto the car ferry—a three story boat complete with passenger lounge and decks to watch the undulating turquoise waters below. Moments like this it hits me that we have to take a boat to get anywhere. That I live on an island.
Living in the UP often feels like living on an island—surrounded by water, isolated from access to urban areas, communities of interesting characters. Isolation necessitates innovation, and I see many similarities between my two homes, despite being worlds apart.

We drive to the little town of Puerto Morelos, and turn right onto the Ruta de Cenotes. All along this paved road are cenotes of different shapes and sizes. Cenotes are naturally occurring pools of water created by the porous limestone and collected rainwater. The pools are blue and deep—connecting underground through rivers and tunnels. The water has a hint of salinity, and the pools are round, giving them a decidedly womb-like feel. The waters feel sacred to me—a meeting of the above world and below world.
The cenote we visit has a cave and an emerald above-ground pool with waterfalls and a rope swing. Cenotes are the closest thing I can find similar to the lakes and rivers of Michigan—fresh water that cradled my body, washed my tears, and heard the confessions of my heart.
At the cenote pool, I lay on my back and look up, into the leafy jungle canopy. With my head underwater, I hear little of the voices around me and can almost imagine myself alone. Dragonflies and damselflies of all shapes, colors, and sizes, dart above me. Somewhere below, subterranean rivers run.
I raise my head from the water, and the first thing I hear, is my son’s laughter.

Cenote! Ruta de Cenotes. Yucatan
Cenote! Ruta de Cenotes. Yucatan

After breakfast this morning, I recite my list of things to do aloud to Callan, “Sweep the floor, do the dishes, writing, shower…Phewwww, lots to do little man!”
“Could be worse,” Ryan says from the porch.
I walk outside and take his face in my hands. Look him in the eyes. Give him a kiss that says all the things.
Callan and I wave as Ryan pulls out of the driveway on the four wheeler—not your average commute to work. He’s off to clean out our old restaurant as we prepare for opening in our new location. Our business that began as a side job making and delivering burritos out of the house is becoming a viable future. Twelve years of schooling, three English degrees, and my husband and I own and run a burrito business in Mexico.
Lots of fodder for a writer.

Callan turns from waving “Adios” to daddy, and returns to taking his coconut in and out of a kitchen pan, and stirring invisible food with a plastic measuring cup.
I return to my desk, and continue writing.
I’m learning to accept the fact that a balanced life, for me, means a foot in two worlds. I’m also unlearning feeling guilty and anxious about stepping away from what, for most of my adult life, I believed was my path.

I take Callan to the beach almost every morning. He runs in and out of the waves, pokes at tide pools, and browns his bare body in early day sun.
I gather up a handful of sand, and as the grains trickle through my fingers—remnants of coral and shells from thousands of years before—I whisper, “Gracias Madre.”
Gracias. For this sweet, unconventional life.

The Rickman Family on The Isla Mujeres Car Ferry
The Rickman Family on The Isla Mujeres Car Ferry

Perspective

It’s all about perspective, you remind yourself…

The combined Mills-Rickman Family
The combined Mills-Rickman Family

This little essay is dedicated to my father, Douglas Mills, and my husband, Ryan Rickman.

They teach my how to be a good parent and how to be grateful for what’s around me day to day.

I’m so thankful my son has men like this to be his guides in a complicated world.

***

Sunset on Playa Norte with Baby Callan.

When I think of things I want to teach my son, the ability to be thankful is one of the most important. It’s so easy to move through our days mindlessly, never noticing what we wear, eat, drive, sleep on, live in, etc. etc. The necessities of daily life can become sunglasses in a dark room to all we have to be grateful for.
Throughout my life, my father has initiated what began as a prayer before dinner, but has morphed into a time of connection, and thankfulness.
The four of us around the antique claw-footed wooden dining room table: me, my mother, father, and little sister. Our plates are full and ready to eat, but first our hands slide into each other’s; my hand into Laurel’s, Laurel’s into Mom’s, Mom’s into Dad’s, and Dad’s into mine. Where once we would’ve bowed our heads in prayer, now we take deep breaths, look each other in the eyes, smile. We look down at the food on our plates: venison, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, lettuce—all harvested by our family. In this moment it is not just food or dinner on our plates, it’s an abundance.
We turn to daddy.
“Thank you for this food, and the hands that prepared it.” He intones softly. He squeezes my hand, and the little squeeze goes around the table. Momma’s eyes are full.
Such a little thing— a little moment, but it seems to me that moments of thankfulness are one of the homes for real happiness: the ability to be grateful—to truly see the bounty. It doesn’t negate struggles and hardships, but provides a new perspective, and through that perspective, a new path to joy even in the midst of struggle.


Your heart races as the list of chores mounts.
Your phone pings with another message—plans you’ll have to cancel if you’re going to catch up on all those emails and the freelance work.
You haven’t showered, or eaten yet, and there’s only so much time until the baby wakes up and needs to be fed.
Feeding is a moment to pause, and you try so hard to take deep breaths and be in the moment, but you’re so tired, and just from where you sit, you can see a dozen chores that need to be done.
Right now, all you can do, is hold this boy child to your breast and breathe.

It’s all about perspective, you remind yourself:

There are crumbs scattered across the table, because you fed people here. Food you prepared nourished your husband, your son, and others.
The living room is messy because your son played here, joy lighting his face as he swept all his toys across the tiles.
In this spot in the kitchen, the floor is carpeted in hair where you swept only hours before; this is where your sweet dogs leaned against your leg, seeking and giving love.
You wash endless dishes because you have money to buy food, and food in your home to cook for family and friends.
You’re tired, but when you lie down to sleep, there is a bed to sleep in, clean sheets, a pillow for comfort, and the arms of your loving partner to rest in.